December 3, 2015

When flying, I’ve only ever had a layover twice, in 1997 and 1998, and both were in Denver, going on to Salt Lake City and Albuquerque respectively. Family vacations. Of flights I’ve booked myself, they’ve always been nonstop. I insist on it.

That 1998 trip, we missed the first flight and had to catch a later one, which in turn made us miss the second leg, which we had to get the next morning. Annoying.

And not worth it! Unless the flight is really goddamn long or it’s absolutely not an option for whatever reason, nonstop is the way to go.

But in those situations where a connecting flight is necessary, the connection should at least make sense. The connection point should at least not be completely out of the way. When I went to London in 2009, thankfully there were plenty of direct flights from Dulles to Heathrow, but the search pulled up some that would get to London by way of Munich. Munich! As in clear past London, only to turn around and come back. What the hell? There are flights to Seattle-Tacoma from here that would connect at Dallas-Fort Worth, swinging way to the south and very much not in the direction of Seattle from Washington DC. There are flights to Las Vegas that connect in New York-JFK or Boston-Logan or Long Beach.

These don’t make any damn sense! If any one leg of a trip with at least one stop is longer than the nonstop flight, something is terribly wrong.

Or it’s the airline industry being the airline industry. Something like that.